Lights, Camera, Maryland

That's all Erik Feig needed to hear. When his firm Summit Entertainment developed the screenplay temporarily titled "Music High," it did so with Baltimore in mind.

Feig, the producer, described the movie as a "modern, music-driven 'Saturday Night Fever' " about a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who ends up at a performing arts school in Baltimore. But because Maryland lacked incentives, the Santa Monica firm -- which also produced this summer's "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" -- started looking for alternatives.

"Maryland passed the rebates in the nick of time. We were going to shoot in New York," which offers aggressive tax breaks, Feig said. "The rebates were incredibly, incredibly necessary for us. It's very difficult for us to justify going with a state or country that does not have a rebate."

The film, which will shoot in Baltimore from September through November, applied for rebates when the law kicked in last month. The state also earmarked money for "Rocket Science," an independent film, and "The Wire," an HBO police drama in its fourth season.

Each will collect the rebates when it submits pay stubs, tax returns and other documents verifying how much it spent locally. If the paperwork checks out, the $4 million pot of money gets paid out.

Nina Noble, executive producer of "The Wire," said the money should defray the show's moving costs. The production recently schlepped its indoor sets and offices to Columbia after its lease at a Baltimore warehouse expired.

When the series starts shooting next month, it will pump money into Howard County's economy, spending on things such as hotels, caterers, office supplies and babysitters for the children of out-of-town workers.

"We will employ about 200 people in Maryland once we're up and running next month, and that doesn't include the extras that we hire by the day," Noble said. "Some employees are from out of state, but they're going to be living here and spending money here."

Some of that money will go to Bunnie Gleiman, vice president of Bond Lumber and Home Center in Lutherville, which works with productions all over the Washington region.

In the past three seasons, "The Wire" spent nearly half a million dollars at Gleiman's family-owned store on wood for indoor sets, such as police stations and other scenes.

"This year is going to be extra special for us because they're in a new building and things need to be reconstructed," Gleiman said. "We are delivering lumber left and right to them every single day."

Gleiman landed an equally impressive job in 2003, when "Ladder 49," a firefighting drama starring John Travolta, spent three months filming in Baltimore. "Their motto was buy it, build it, burn it," she said. "They spent over $300,000 on lumber."